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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745111">Grief</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin'>Josselin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Second Job [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies), White Collar (TV 2009)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:55:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,287</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Josselin/pseuds/Josselin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It had only taken three phone calls to find Rusty’s location, and then it was a six hour flight to LA and another hour to make any kind of progress through traffic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Neal Caffrey/Danny Ocean/Rusty Ryan, Neal Caffrey/Rusty Ryan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Second Job [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1434832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Grief</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you to stillwaterseas for helping me push through to the finish line!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Peter hadn’t been happy about the idea. Peter had said things like “I can’t stop you,” and “You don’t have a radius anymore,” and “You can visit your friend if you want, Neal,” but he hadn’t even been pretending to hide that he didn’t like the idea. Neal had said things like, “I’m worried about him,” and “He’s grieving,” and “This isn’t me being unhappy, Peter--I just--”</p><p>Neal suspected El hadn’t been happy about the idea either, but she’d just kissed his forehead and said, “I love you, sweetie,” and “I hope your friend is okay,” and “Do you want to take any flowers?” She’d also been the last one to touch his duffle bag, so he was fairly sure the box of condoms inside it was from her. An unspoken reminder of their agreement about outside partners.</p><p>It had only taken three phone calls to find Rusty’s location, and then it was a six hour flight to LA and another hour to make any kind of progress through traffic.</p><p>In front of the door, Neal hesitated. Should he knock? Pick the lock? </p><p>The door swung open. </p><p>Rusty leaned one arm against the door frame. “Caffrey.” He looked tired. He looked older. He looked tired and older. It had been close to ten years since Neal had last seen him, and he had fine lines around his eyes and on his forehead, and while his hair was still the same blond it had always been, his stubble was coming in silver. </p><p>Neal was probably the same. He rubbed his own chin self-consciously. He hadn’t shaved since the day before. “Hey,” he said, his voice soft. “I heard about--”</p><p>Rusty nodded, and dropped his arm from the door frame, waving his hand for Neal to come in.</p><p>Neal set his duffle bag down next to the door and tugged the door shut behind him. </p><p>Rusty’s place was kind of a mess. Not the middle-of-a-job mess that took over an office or hotel base of operations when planning a heist, with maps spread out everywhere and random gadgets stacked up on chairs. Just the messiness of a man who lived most of his life in hotels and wasn’t used to picking up after himself. </p><p>There were boxes all over the place, too, some stacked on the counter in the kitchen next to an open jar of olives, others in the living room next to the couch. </p><p>“I’m really sorry, Rus--”</p><p>“Who’d you hear it from?” Rusty interrupted, flopping down onto his couch. </p><p>Neal followed, sitting down in a more composed way next to Rusty. The box next to him seemed to be filled with records, and his chest tightened. Rusty wouldn’t have a box of records. Danny would have, though, he’d loved music and had a giant record collection.</p><p>“FBI,” Neal said. “It was part of a statement from an informant.”</p><p>“Who?” said Rusty. </p><p>“I can’t say,” Neal said. </p><p>Rusty raised his eyebrows and didn’t say anything.</p><p>“I have to protect the identity--”</p><p>Rusty twisted his mouth.</p><p>“It was Michael Alderman.”</p><p>“Which one?” Rusty said. </p><p>“The older one,” said Neal.</p><p>“Is he the prettier one?” Rusty was making a squinty face like he was trying to remember. </p><p>Neal nodded. </p><p>“Well, I guess everybody’s heard.”</p><p>Neal nodded again.</p><p>“Why are you here?”</p><p>“I wanted to check on you,” Neal said. “Make sure you were okay, offer support--”</p><p>Rusty shifted himself around on the couch, swinging one leg up so that it tucked between Neal and the backrest, putting Neal between his legs. “I mean,” he said, one eyebrow raised and one hand on the button of his pants. “If you’re offering.”</p><p>“I meant emotional support,” Neal said, but he leaned over willingly enough. Rusty drew his hand away and let Neal have access to open his pants, and when they were open and Neal had his soft cock in his hand, Rusty moved his hand to Neal’s hair. </p><p>“What, you want to talk about feelings?” Rusty said, sarcastic and pushing just a little bit on Neal’s head. </p><p>“If you want--” but he was interrupted by what Rusty clearly actually wanted, which was for Neal to put his mouth on his cock.</p><p>Afterward, Neal wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, glancing around for a napkin or a tissue or something convenient. Rusty seemed content to continue laying boneless on the couch with his cock out.</p><p>“What happened?” Neal asked. “How did he--”</p><p>There was a noise at the front door. </p><p>Neal looked up. Rusty didn’t move, even to do up his pants.</p><p>“Who’s--” Neal started, when Danny Ocean walked through the front door, holding a grocery bag.</p><p>Danny was older, too. His hair was pure silver instead of the streaks it’d been the last time they’d met, and he’d put on a bit of weight around the middle. “Rus, I--” he stopped, seeing Neal. “Neal!”</p><p>Neal couldn’t help the dumbfounded look he was wearing, and he took a throw pillow from where it’d fallen on the floor and whapped Rusty with it. “You complete asshole.”</p><p>Rusty raised his hand to protect his face. He was laughing.</p><p>“You lied to me!” Neal protested, whapping him again.</p><p>“I didn’t lie--” Rusty protested. </p><p>“You son of a--”</p><p>Rusty was still chuckling.</p><p>“I’m going to strangle you,” Neal said, trying to use the pillow to smother Rusty’s laughter.</p><p>“What will your Fed think of a murder charge--”</p><p>“Apparently being dead doesn’t even mean anything anymore--”</p><p>“Like you’ve never--”</p><p>Danny set down the grocery bag in the kitchen and came in to watch the two of them fighting. He raised an eyebrow at Rusty’s state of undress and didn’t say anything.</p><p>The fight finally subsided when Rusty wrestled the pillow to the floor and got Neal in a hold on top of him, Neal’s back to his chest, one of his hands around Neal’s wrists.</p><p>“I hate you,” Neal said. </p><p>Rusty chuckled again. </p><p>“Why the--” Neal said, to Danny.</p><p>Danny shrugged. “Things were getting complicated.”</p><p>Neal frowned at him for a moment. “Wouldn’t a divorce be easier?”</p><p>Rusty sighed. “That’s what I said.”</p><p>Danny made an exasperated noise. “This was not about--”</p><p>Rusty let Neal’s wrists go and sat up a little, dislodging Neal slightly. “I wasn’t expecting you.”</p><p>Neal glanced at him.</p><p>“Thought you were still on a leash.”</p><p>Neal still had a miffed tone. “I’ve been off parole for years.”</p><p>Rusty touched his hands, where he wore the emerald from Elizabeth on his left and the band from Peter on his right. “Leash,” Rusty said, and Neal felt the same flutter of something in his stomach that he’d felt when he looked at Peter’s face when Peter dropped him at the airport. </p><p>Neal pulled his hands away, irritated.</p><p>“Does that mean you don’t want to fuck?” Rusty said. </p><p>“No,” Neal said, and he could hear the pout in his own voice. “But not because I’m on a leash, because you’re a complete and total dick who lied to me--” his voice was getting louder until Rusty clapped a hand over his mouth. </p><p>“Danny,” Rusty said, nodding, and Danny came and sat down next to them. </p><p>“How’ya been, Caffrey?” Danny said, smiling gently. </p><p>Neal mumbled something against Rusty’s hand and glared.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. But you know how these things go,” Danny said. “You pull a Lazarus, you can’t notify all your friends.”</p><p>Neal mumbled something more.</p><p>“I mean, Rusty could have told you when you got here, yeah.”</p><p>Neal felt that made his point very clearly and he didn’t have to say anything more.</p><p>“You’re looking good, Caffrey,” Danny said, looking him over. “You still in New York?”</p><p>Neal nodded.</p><p>“Still with that couple?” Danny said. There was a note of--something--in his voice.</p><p>Neal nodded again.</p><p>“I always wondered if that was part of a long con.”</p><p>Neal licked Rusty’s hand. It tasted vaguely of olives. Rusty drew it away. “You’re disgusting,” Rusty said, wiping his hand on Neal’s shirt.</p><p>“I don’t do that anymore,” Neal said. </p><p>Danny nodded, considering. “Don’t do that anymore, or <i>don’t do that anymore</i>?”</p><p>“I’m out.”</p><p>“What do you do? You still working for the FBI?”</p><p>Neal shrugged. “Sometimes. I consult for other people, too. Museums, firms.”</p><p>“So instead of conning people, they pay you to tell them how you’d con them.”</p><p>Neal grinned. “Yeah.”</p><p>“And you like that?”</p><p>Neal’s grin faded a bit. “Yeah,” he said, almost defensive. What he really liked, more than the work, was what it got him. Peter and Elizabeth, their new puppy that he’d named Dizzy. Cooking at home after work. Redecorating the house with El. Sketching while Peter watched the game on a lazy Saturday afternoon.</p><p>“Have dinner with us,” Danny said, half a command and half an invitation.</p><p>They moved to the kitchen. Danny poured glasses of wine and started to unpack the bag of groceries and pull pans out from the cupboard. Neal was assigned to chop vegetables, which he did more artistically than either Danny or Rusty appreciated, and Rusty just ate ingredients while Danny cooked. </p><p>“Won’t people find out,” Neal said, “that you’re not, you know--”</p><p>“Fewer people come by to offer blowjobs than you would think,” Rusty said.</p><p>Danny threw a carrot at him. “Eventually, maybe,” he said. “I think it’s okay for now. Unless you’re planning to tell?”</p><p>Neal shook his head.</p><p>When the stir fry was done, Danny tipped portions of it out onto plates, and they carried the plates over to the table. </p><p>Rusty ate his entire plate, some pieces of chicken he pilfered from Danny’s plate, and then the remainder of Neal’s plate, when Neal handed it over.</p><p>“I’m still mad at you,” Neal told him.</p><p>Rusty smiled through a bite of chicken. “I’ll make it up to you.”</p><p>After eating, Rusty threw Neal’s bag into a spare bedroom, but Neal followed Rusty and Danny to the master bedroom easily enough. </p><p>He thought too much once they were there. Neal had never been one to draw lines. When they were drawn for him, he was the first to test the boundary, whether it was crayons outside the lines of his coloring book or testing what happened when he left the marshall’s radius to go to Peter’s house for the first time. He wound up in Danny and Rusty’s bed and he found himself thinking he should draw lines. </p><p>It wasn’t the first time the three of them had been together, so it wasn’t new relationship lines, where you wanted to savor certain firsts separately and enjoy them each to the fullest. It wasn’t that he was hiding something in particular from Danny and Rusty and he was conniving to make sure they didn’t discover it. He still found watching the two of them together hot. They made out in a way that was distinctively them--aggressive and knowing and intimate. While their bodies were older, with less definition and grayer hair, their movements touching each other spoke of knowing each other in a way that Neal found undeniably appealing. He wanted to capture that intimacy on the page, somehow; his fingers itched for a pencil.</p><p>Neal definitely agreed that Rusty owed him, and he accepted Rusty’s blowjob. Rusty was good with his mouth, when he bothered to apply himself to things besides eating, and he applied a degree of finesse to Neal that he hadn’t experienced in many years.  </p><p>Yet Neal was too much in his head given that he was having threesome with two hot guys who he knew had amazing sex.</p><p>Rusty wandered back to the kitchen to find snacks, and Danny turned wise eyes on Neal. “So you’re hooked.”</p><p>Neal pursed his lips. “I don’t like that word.”</p><p>Danny smiled. “You found something worth getting out of the game for.”</p><p>Neal thought about that for a minute.</p><p>Danny was getting philosophical. “We all get into the game for someone, and then we get out of it for someone.”</p><p>Neal’s thoughts went back to Kate and Adler. Or had he been in it before that, even? </p><p>Rusty came back from the kitchen with an apple in one hand and a spoonful of something in the other. He spoke through what seemed to be peanut butter. “Then we get back into the game for someone, and then we fake our own deaths for someone else.”</p><p>Danny waved a dismissive hand at him, and spoke to Neal. “It’s good. You seem happy.”</p><p>Rusty takes a bite of apple, and then licks the juice running down his thumb. “You looking for work? I know a guy in Rio--”</p><p>The line drifted in front of Neal for a moment. He’d only been to Brazil once, and it had been twenty years ago. He remembered the music, the energy, the dancing.</p><p>But there was a stronger tether--a leash, maybe, like Rusty had called it--drawing him back to New York. Maybe if he worked Elizabeth they could convince Peter to consider a vacation trip further than the Hamptons. </p><p>Neal shook his head. Rusty finished his apple and dropped the core into a trash can. </p><p>The next day, they dropped Neal off near the airport, staying far enough away to avoid all the cameras. </p><p>Danny and Neal shook hands. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” Neal said.</p><p>“Likewise,” Danny told him, flashing a grin, and Neal was helpless against grinning back.</p><p>Rusty’s hands were covered in some kind of candy bar that Neal had never heard of. “Next time I hear you’re in trouble,” Neal said, “I’m not going to come.”</p><p>Rusty grinned at him also. “You will,” he said, but before Neal had a chance to argue further, the two of them had turned and were walking away.</p>
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